Sacrifices

A year ago today, I was headed for bed, knowing I'd have to talk to my doctor the next day about going to Tulsa for the hysterectomy. At this point, I was still convinced I could talk her into doing it in Fort Smith. Actually, I was still convinced she would tell me she made a mistake and I didn't have cancer. It was a kind of 'hope beyond any reason of hope' that I was clinging to. I was having a lot of trouble trying to sleep, often I would console and soothe myself into sleep with promises of everything being okay. Sometimes it worked. Often, it did not. 

In the end, I did have cancer.  I did have to go to Tulsa. It was painful and awful, but it saved my life. There were a lot of sleepless nights and more fear than I thought I could handle. Somehow I did. I am glad I did.

Yesterday, we were in Tulsa. I've been a few times since my surgery, but the clinic where I go is on the outskirts of the city. The hospital where I had my surgery is deeper in and we drove past it on the way to my roommate's appointment. I had a very intense reaction to it. I really did think about how that was the place where I was sterilized. It's also the place where my life was saved, but still. This certainly was a situation where to be saved, I had to make a sacrifice.

The funny thing is, I didn't really see it that way at the time. I didn't actually care about my reproductive organs. They were causing me tons of problems and threatening my life. I didn't want kids so the idea of them being gone was perfectly fine. It's only later when I really considered the cost of that. As I've blogged before, losing part of yourself is never easy. I realized when I drove by the hospital that I'm still somewhat in mourning about it.